Apology Not Accepted
by SamCyberCat
Summary: Klavier found it was hard enough to apologise to someone for ruining their life years ago, but somehow when they had already forgiven you and weren't holding a grudge it was a lot harder. Phoenix/Klavier.


Notes – Done for 15pairings. Set about a week or so post-AJ, contains major spoilers for Turnabout Trump and Turnabout Succession. Can't believe how long it took me to get to a fic about Klavier either. These two are currently my favourite pairing to muse, so I might have gone a little overboard with it.

* * *

There are times in life when you have to put your ego to a side and apologise to someone.

It might seem that this would be particularly difficult to manage for someone with an ego as big as Klavier's, but it wasn't the pride that was the problem.

The problem was what he was apologising for…

To start with it was something that had happened more than seven years ago. For that time Klavier had felt it was right to trust his brother's words about the false evidence that Phoenix Wright had presented in court, so as strange as the situation had been he'd never felt that he was the one who was wrong for being the prosecutor who accused him of it. The duty of a lawyer was to find the truth, and if Phoenix showed false evidence than he wasn't trying to find the truth at all.

But it turned out both of them had been duped and the one lying all along had been Klavier's brother Kristoph. Karma's difficult like that.

The whole situation was made a lot worse by the fact that Phoenix had lost his career because of it. Presenting false evidence was a crime, so because he had he couldn't be trusted to be a defence attorney.

It's not exactly easy to say to someone 'I'm sorry that I caused your life to go down the drain seven years ago'. How could that person even start to forgive you for something like that?

But it remained the right thing to do, so at least for the sake of trying Klavier was going to do it.

Finding the Wright Anything Agency didn't take very long. He'd never actually been there before himself, but it wasn't far off from the People Park, where the first murder that Klavier had prosecuted against Apollo had occurred.

He knocked on the door, not hesitating, because once you've decided within yourself to do something you can't go back on it. Though it was quite a while before someone answered. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the person on the other side of the door was Phoenix, who definitely looked as if he'd been asleep until a few seconds ago.

"Oh, you," he said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, "If you're here to talk to Apollo about a case then you've missed him by about two hours. But I'll tell him you stopped by when he gets back."

"Actually, I wanted to talk to you, Herr Wright," Klavier said quickly.

Phoenix seemed surprised by that; "All… right then. You'd better come inside."

He stepped a side to let him past, then walked through to the living room. Or what in theory might have been the living room if it hadn't been filled with collective junk. Other people horded things, this place had books and various props lying across the floor as if the owners just didn't care. Which in this case they probably didn't, but Klavier had expected better of Apollo at least.

Sitting down on one of the sofas Phoenix looked expectantly across at Klavier.

"Might be a good idea if you start, since I honestly have no idea why you're here," he said, without venom.

"It's quite difficult to talk about," Klavier said, taking to the sofa as well, "But in that last case… a lot of things turned out to be different from how I'd thought they were."

Phoenix smiled a little, and then said, "As a lawyer you should be used to that by now."

"Not when it comes to cases that happened years ago," Klavier retorted.

It seemed Phoenix saw where he was coming from now, but he didn't looked any less cheerful, which was unusual.

He picked up a cup from the table and drank what was presumably cold coffee before replying, "That's the problem with the court system. Even when I was an attorney I felt that the judge's rulings were be all and end all. Somehow by the time a verdict was declared it seemed as if I'd learned everything that I needed to know about a case – up until that one. Everything about it seemed off, there were so many loose ends. And I'm not just talking about my client disappearing. The court isn't always right, so that's why I carried on looking into it."

"For this long?" Klavier asked.

"It wasn't on my mind all the time," Phoenix admitted, "But as soon as Shadi Smith turned up that night I knew some of the answers were going to come together. Your brother knew it too."

That had been the case when his brother had been arrested for murder. Back then Klavier had no idea that it wasn't to be the only crime on Kristoph's hands.

"You still went through a lot to get your answers," Klavier said.

"The truth's important enough for that, don't you think?" he replied, looking at him in that distant way that he did.

"Ja, but…" this was when he had to get to the real reason why he was here, "…You shouldn't have had to lose your badge for it. I have to apolog-"

Phoenix held up his hand before Klavier could finish.

"You don't have to apologise for what happened," he said firmly, "We were all tricked."

"Passing the blame onto Kristoph doesn't cut it," Klavier shot, a little annoyed at being cut off before he could say sorry, "If I had thought about it harder at the time it would have been obvious that there was something up with what he wanted me to do."

"And if I'd thought about it more then I'd have never trusted that evidence," Phoenix argued, "I can't blame you for listening to Kristoph's advice anymore than you can blame me for presenting the forgery in the first place. We're all equally to blame, and if you want to get down further there's quite a few more people who could be blamed for it too." He let the words sink in before adding, "Life doesn't work like that. Everything you do has a consequence, so there's no point blaming anyone for that case."

"Not even slightly?" Klavier questioned, seeming doubtful that Phoenix had forgiven him entirely for losing his badge.

"At the time, maybe," Phoenix said, "But not now. Not for a long while. As far as I'm concerned you're just as clueless as the rest of us." Then he laughed. Klavier had heard Phoenix was one for laughing at strange moments.

"Okay, I accept all that, but can't you at least let me say sorry to get it off my chest? You lost a lot that day," he insisted.

"…And I gained a daughter. Not to mention a whole new outlook on life, which I never would have done otherwise," Phoenix confirmed, "Besides, there's nothing saying I won't get my badge back at some point, and my piano playing career might take off any day now."

The less said about Phoenix's piano playing career the better.

"There's no way I'm going to be able to talk you around on this," said Klavier, shaking his head.

Looking over, Phoenix answered, "The way you're going on it sounds as if you want me to blame you for what happened."

Hearing it like that it sounded so ludicrous, but when he thought about it part of him had wanted Phoenix to be angry about it. Apologising to someone who was resentful felt more fulfilling than this lack of blame somehow.

Though he didn't answer out loud, Phoenix got the message.

"Stop it, that sort of approach really doesn't suit you," he said, reaching over to put a hand on Klavier's shoulder, "I've already told you my two cents on the case, so you might as well get over it. Chances are with us both working around Apollo we'll be seeing a lot more of each other in future, so it'll drag if you get like this whenever you see me."

"Don't worry about that," Klavier said, a little unnerved by the hand resting on his shoulder, "Next time you see me I'll be as charming as usual."

"People like us are good at wearing masks," Phoenix said, and the laugh didn't hide the implication of that this time.

'Like us'?

They had more in common than he'd realised.

Both of them hid their thoughts behind a cheerful image of everything being all right. Maybe that was one of the reasons they both saw the appeal in hanging around with someone slightly naïve, like Apollo was.

Klavier looked at him and said, "I don't think either of us have been wearing one today."

Phoenix carried on smiling, and said, "You needed to be told straight."

"Danke," Klavier said, smiling himself now.

"So, no more self blaming for something that happened years ago? You don't seem like that sort of rock star," Phoenix joked.

"Not at all," Klavier said cheerfully, "Though if it's all the same with you I wouldn't mind sticking around until Herr Forehead gets back."

"I'm sure we can find something to kill the time until then," Phoenix answered, taking a deck of cards out of his pocket, "You play poker?"

It said something about either how confident or how foolish Klavier was that he accepted a poker match against someone who hadn't lost in seven years.

It said a lot more about Apollo's patience when he got back, considerably later than he'd intended to find the two of them sleeping next to each other on the sofa while cards were splayed out on the table, and didn't make any attempt to wake them.

At least they hadn't got as far as strip poker yet, he reasoned to himself.


End file.
